Chapter 5

The Ladder to Heaven

ANGELS That Go Up and Down

Even at the present day, when arbitrary forms of speech long
since have displaced the more primitive use of universal symbols, it is not
uncommon to refer to the highest point as nearest heaven. The highest point in
the zodiac, the place for which pyramids and mounds were erected, is the
dividing line between Gemini and Cancer. Fires were lighted on these eminences
to signify the Sun had reached its greatest elevation; that is, had reached the
very gate of heaven.

If there is a special gate to heaven, to which in ancient
times great homage was paid we moderns should not be ignorant of its nature.
Peter, who is pictured in the sky as Cepheus with his foot upon the rock of
Truth, the Pole Star, against which the gates of hell, at the opposite side of
the zodiac, shall not prevail, is reputed to hold the keys to the kingdom of
heaven, as related in Matthew, 16. But it were better for our purpose to go
much further back; back to the dream of Jacob as described in the twenty-eighth
chapter of Genesis.

The degrees of the zodiac are not unlike the rungs of a
ladder which arches the sky, extending from earth to heaven. Jacob dreamed of
such a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and
angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Thus do the Sun and the
various planets move higher and higher in the sky until they reach the first of
the sign Cancer and then start their descent to lower declination.

This sign Cancer, where the Sun may be found from June 22 to
July 23, is the natural ruler of the home and family. Therefore, next in his
dream he is told that his children will be many and that in them all the
families of the earth will be blessed. But when he awoke he was frightened,
saying, "this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven."

As angels more commonly are considered, instead of their
going up to heaven from the earth, and the returning from that superior region,
we should expect them to come down from heaven and after their visit on earth
to return again to that higher plane. But in Jacob�s dream they were going up,
as the Sun ascends to reach the sign Cancer, and then coming back to earth, as
the Sun again descends after it reaches that family sign.

This going up and coming down, which the Sun is observed to
do each summer, evidently signified to those who traced the starry pictures in
the sky and gave to each a story, a going up and coming down which was
suggestive of the movement of those intelligences which have no physical form,
and which, for want of a better term, may be called angels.

Although the place where a person commonly sleeps may be
regarded as his home, the action of Jacob after awakening, of setting up a
stone to be the house of God would be difficult to understand were it not that
other contemporaneous peoples, in various parts of the world, were also
accustomed to set up pillars, pyramids and towers to commemorate this nearest
approach of the spiritual symbol, the Sun; which, in this position, marks the
commencement of the home sign, Cancer.

It was the belief of the better informed of these people
that the soul made progress by gaining experiences in one physical form;
passing at its dissolution into the astral world, as Jacob saw the non-material
beings do in his dream, and after a period of experience and assimilation in
the astral world, descending, as Jacob saw them do, to occupy another, but more
complex, physical body on the earth.

Every such form occupied constituted one rung in the soul�s
evolutionary ladder. It could be gained only through the offices of parents who
provided it opportunity to have a new physical body.

Every physical cell, every germ or shoot which develops into
bacterium, plant or animal is dependent upon parenthood for its existence.
Without parenthood there could be no opportunity for evolutionary progress, no
successive rungs which more complex life forms provide, no avenue to reach the
spiritual development which opens wide the Elysian gates. As the commencement
of Cancer marks the highest declination of the Sun and the boundary of the
place of home, so also, as signifying parenthood, it is in truth the very gate
of heaven.

This coming back to earth, and the coming back of the Sun
toward the earth in declination, needed some object to represent them in the
sky. The Crab does not move directly forward, as other creatures are wont to
do, but has a backward, sidewise gait. Its motion thus most fittingly
represents the backward motion of the Sun.

Nor is it without significance that the preceding
compartment in the zodiacal circle, which is touched by this gate of the above,
is Gemini, the section ruling thought. As the Key phrase to Cancer is, I Feel,
we have quite appropriately, Thinking and Feeling in immediate contact with the
highest point of the celestial circle, and thus leading to the heavenly gate.

Thoughts enter into compounds which are harmonious or
discordant according to the Feeling at the time they were brought together. If
the feeling was that of discord, the thoughts so united tend to attract into
the life the very opposite of heaven; they attract misfortune and distress. But
if the feeling which accompanied their union was of a pleasant turn, to the
extent such harmony was present do the thought cells then composed, work to
attract fortune and happiness into the life.

A similar process is at work with lower forms, in fact,
wherever life exists such processes are at work; although the states of
consciousness experienced can hardly be dignified by the name of thought. Yet
life forms on every plane, and in every stage of progress, have experiences
which are registered in their finer forms as states of consciousness.

These states of consciousness, however lowly and simple they
may be, constitute the experiences of that form. They are registered in the
astral counterpart, and combine to form the psychoplasmic cells of that finer
body; and these, in turn, determine the experiences which will be attracted to
it.

Whether lowly or highly evolved, whether to a single cell of
protoplasm or to an educated man, every experience that comes to a life form
adds just that much energy to its finer body. As a man, when hypnotized, or
under psychoanalysis, can recall any experience or thought of his past, so the
four-dimensional body of every organism is a complete record of all that has
happened to it, and its mental and emotional reactions to these occurrences.

Thus it is that every form of life is moving forward, toward
the acquisition of such abilities as will fit it to perform the particular
function in the cosmic scheme of affairs, that it has been called into
differentiated existence to fulfill. It attracts to it, by virtue of its
original polarity, the type of experiences that afford it the proper trend in
education. It does not have just the same experiences that some other does;
because it is not being educated to fill the same cosmic position.

Its experiences in one form of life, however, give its
thought cells, or unconscious mind, ability to handle certain situations. It
learns how to gather together the material elements and build a certain kind of
physical body. And then, when the body dies, as seen in Jacob�s dream, it
ascends to heaven; that is, passes to the astral spheres.

In this astral realm there are other opportunities for
experience and progress. Life is never stationary; it is ever moving, always
gaining new experiences, whatever may be the plane. These experiences, however,
are of a different sort. They are four-dimensional experiences; experiences
also of reorganizing what has been gained in the preceding physical body.

Then, when the vibratory conditions are right, the life form
which has continued its progress on the astral plane, is attracted again to
earth, descends the ladder as in Jacob�s dream, to enter another physical form;
a physical form which is a step in advance, perhaps a long step in advance; due
to its assimilation of previous experiences.

Successively, it ascends to the astral plane and then
returns to earth, as the angels moved up and down; but each physical form, due
to its acquired experiences, is a step in advance, and each ascent to the
astral is a more conscious existence. Birth and death and birth again are the
rungs of the ladder which lead man to his spiritual estate; and the gate
through which he must pass to enter that estate is the gate of parenthood.

The benefits of parenthood, if its offices are well
performed, are not confined to those conferred upon the offspring. Like most of
the better things of life when given, the giver receives an equal advantage. As
iron when cold gives forth no glow, yet becomes luminous with light when
sufficiently heated, and thus imparts a motion to a substance finer than the
physical, that is, to ether; so the warm sympathies of parenthood transmit
their energies to substance still finer than the astral and tend to the
construction of a truly spiritual form.

To the extent feelings and emotions are present which have
for their chief concern the welfare of others, do they displace thoughts and
emotions which revolve around the self, such as are represented by the Giant
Bear; and to the extent the tender emotions of the family ties find expression
do they displace the domestic discord of the Giant Crab.

Greek legend says that while Hercules was performing one of
his great labors, battling with Hydra in the Lernean marshes, a huge Crab
attempted to drag him down through seizing him by the foot.

Many another worker has similarly been hampered in life�s
struggle through domestic misunderstanding. Strife and discord in the home have
a peculiarly effective way of confusing the mind and retarding effort. They are
powerful to pull the individual down. But domestic harmony is equally as
effective to raise him up. The text, therefore, becomes: Parenthood Tends to
Displace Selfishness With those Tender Affections that Most Quickly Strengthen
the Soul and Build the Spiritual Body.

The Misfortune of Old Dog Tray

Long have the bards sung of the Inconstant Moon, whose face
each night is different from the last; who rules the ever-changing ocean tides,
and in the birth chart of man is found in that department of his life most
given to ebb and flood. Might we not expect, then, that the Moon�s own decanate
of the Moon�s own sign, Cancer, should picture in constellation and in story,
some spiritual doctrine relating to family life, which the sign as a whole
governs, as influenced by unjustified change?

And we should have a right to expect, I believe, that the
teaching should chiefly revolve around a danger to be avoided, rather than an
advantage to be won; because when the Sun enters this particular decanate, or
10-degree section of its path, it undergoes its greatest derogatory change.
Until it reaches the point pictured among the constellations by Canis Minor it
increases in power, the days get longer and longer; but the moment it touches
the Little Dog decanate it begins to fail; its power diminishes, and the days
become shorter and shorter. Its life is no longer what it used to be.

It should not be inferred from this, however, that people
born from June 22 to July 2, are less faithful in their family vows than
others. Their love of home and their devotion to it is even remarkable. The
changeableness to which they are subject relates to their feelings. Their
emotions are like the tides of the sea, flowing in during one period, shortly
to turn and flow out during the next. Although the message the constellation
conveys points to the dangers of moral laxity, the trait which most clearly
distinguishes those born when the Sun is here is stated by the Keyword, which
is Moods.

Cancer is the first of the watery signs, and thus relates to
baptism. That is, the Sun, as symbol of deific power, as it makes its annual
pilgrimage, must go into, and come out of, the water sign Cancer before it can
return to its own home in the nest sign, Leo. It is not the sign of death, but
in a natural birth chart rules the conditions at the end of life; and thus
signifies, as baptism does, a readiness and willingness to enter upon a new and
higher form of life, a willingness to enter the Father�s fold.

When the ancients sought to find an emblem of the Savior in
the sky, most naturally they selected the brightest of all the stars, the great
star Sirius, which was venerated especially in Egypt because it gave warning of
the flooding of the Nile, which in turn made possible the raising of crops, and
thus gave new life to the people.

This star, in turn, had its own announcer. Sirius comes
first in zodiacal longitude, which determines the order of its pictorial
succession; but due to having a northern rather than a southern declination,
Procyon, the Little Dog Star, to people of the northern hemisphere, always puts
in an appearance above the horizon first. When the Little Dog Star appears it
is known that the Great Dog Star shortly will follow. The baptizing star, chief
luminary to picture the water decanate of the most watery sign of all the
zodiac, thus announces one still greater who is to come.

The great baptizer of Bible times, John preached incessantly
against moral transgression, saying; "And now also the axe is laid unto the
root of the trees; every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is
hewn down, and cast into the fire." In fact, he lost his life through pointing
out to Herod the evil which would follow his domestic sins.

Herod�s brother Philip had a wife. But instead of treating
her as a sister, Herod violated the sanctity of his brother�s home by taking
this woman and marrying her himself. The wife he thus obtained by breaking up
his brother�s home was called Herodias; and by her subsequent conduct we may be
sure that she not merely sanctioned this proceeding, but also chiefly engineered
it.

She was that type of woman who obtains her ends through
craft and subtlety, to whom loyalty is unknown, and stops at no sin nor
violence to prevent her ambitions being thwarted.

Therefore, when John remonstrated with Herod on the evil
thing he had done, and placed the proper measure of blame on Herodias, she
schemed and plotted to take his life. And it is not amazing, as the power of
the Sun is cut off as soon as it reaches the family decanate of the family
sign, that John lost his head through a plot involving the whole domestic
group.

Herod, mindful of the wishes of the people, who rightfully
regarded John as a very holy man, had no intention of killing him. But Herodias
had a daughter who danced very well, and she conceived the idea of using this daughter
to have John destroyed.

When Herod�s birthday rolled around, therefore, and he had
invited high captains and other notables of his realm to be present at his
home, he was desirous of impressing them through affording excellent
entertainment. He was more than pleased, consequently, as things began to get a
bit dull, when just at the right moment, the daughter of Herodias put in an
appearance and danced so engagingly that all were loud in their praise.

As pride welled up within him, and rather off his guard with
the excitement of the celebration, he swore an oath that he would give the girl
anything she asked, even to half his kingdom. It had not occurred to him that
she would make some unreasonable demand. But when, instigated by her mother,
she did betray his spirit of generosity, to have failed to keep his oath would
have lost him the esteem of all those present.

Therefore, when the girl asked for the head of John, to save
his own face, he ordered it brought to her, that she might carry it to her wicked,
plotting mother on a platter.

Herod may not have been a model man, but like Old Dog Tray,
he had to take the blame also for the transgressions of his close companions.

The Old Dog Tray story is told in many lands. He was not at
heart wicked, just a dog with certain weaknesses of character, too easily
influenced by his associates. He had never killed a sheep in his life, and had
no intention of thus betraying the trust placed in him by his master.

But there were other dogs that had no such scruples. They
lay about all day, taking it easy and warming themselves while they dozed in
the sun. But when darkness fell they gathered into a roving marauding band,
scouring the countryside in search of sheep to kill, on which they feasted,
returning to their homes before the break of day.

Tray was not a murderer of sheep, but he loved company, and
on a particular night when many sheep were killed had gone along, more for the
sake of companionship than with any thought of adventure. By this time the
owners of the sheep had become so thoroughly aroused that they had placed a
watchman to observe which dogs left their homes at night to join the outlaw
pack. Tray was absent from home, and was seen to join the others before the
crime took place. He, therefore, was rounded up and paid the penalty of death,
along with the guilty rest.

Long before the time of Herod another Hebrew king, Ahab, had
a wife whose name has come to be used as a synonym for infidelity and
wickedness. Jezebel influenced Ahab to commit all manner of evil, and it was
prophesied, therefore, that she should die and that the dogs should eat her
flesh; a prophecy that in due time was fulfilled, as related most dramatically
in Second Kings.

The dogs that thus devour are the emotions which ever
accompany wickedness. The feelings which are present as the companions of
thought determine the type of compound which is formed in the thought cells of
the structure of the finer body. Treachery, sooner or later, brings a reward of
sorrow through the events attracted by the thought cells thus formed. Hate
gnaws at the very bones of the hater, attracting malice from others, and
through its action on the ductless glands, destroying the mineral balance of
the body.

Ever-changing moods and fretful inconstancy within the domestic
circle attract a train of woes that consumes the energies and leads eventually
to some disaster.

The Greeks portrayed the devouring effects of unhallowed
emotions quite clearly in their story of Actaeon. This legendary person had
fifty dogs with which he hunted in his leisure time. One day, as with his dogs
he came out of the forest into the vale of Gargaphia, quite by accident he
discovered Diana, the Moon, bathing there with her nymphs.

Instead of beating an immediate retreat, as modesty dictated
he should, his emotions overcame his finer nature. But Diana perceiving his
approach, thereupon transformed him into a stag. In this stag the dogs could
not recognize their master, but considering it their natural prey, they tore
him quite asunder.

The Law of Affinity is inexorable. That which we have within
ourselves, and that only, do we attract from our environment. The discord may
be due to weakness, as it is represented in the story of Acteon, rather than to
malice; yet whatever its cause, if it is a portion of the character, built into
the finer body through emotional associations, it will attract a similar
discord from without.

We cannot do injustice to another, or like Herodias, harbor
thoughts of revenge, without building into ourselves the nucleus of the very
condition thought about. The plot, the very wish that injury may befall
someone, builds cells of a similar quality within ourselves, which, because of
their discordant composition, because given a feeling of malice, not only work
from the four-dimensional plane to bring about the injury contemplated, but due
to their essential vicious nature, also work to attract misfortune to
ourselves.

Both the ductless glands of the physical body and the
thought cells of the four-dimensional body, take their orders as they come. It
is not within their ability to reason and make decisions; only to obey. If,
therefore, the thoughts are evil, or the emotions run wild, they act as thus
directed, unaware that destruction follows to their master. The text which the
decanate thus suggests is: The Wages of Sin Is Death.

The Snake Which Had Too Many Heads

The people whom we meet from day to day, not less than those
with whom we make a casual acquaintance, leave us with a distinct impression of
their characters. Certain points of strength stand out, and certain points of
weakness. Even those we most admire not infrequently have special traits that
lessen their personal attractiveness.

We have all met the perennially apologetic individual, I am
sure. The one who has ability sufficient for accomplishment, but who is fearful
to make the attempt. When called upon to take some small responsibility he
shrinks from it, asks that someone better qualified should do the work, or if
he accepts it, makes it plain that, although he will do his best, he feels
himself unqualified. Our psychologists have a label for this complaint. They
call it an inferiority complex.

Closely akin to him, although quite the opposite in his
expression, is the braggart. His pleasantest pastime consists in telling people
how great he is, what wonders he can do. He is always the hero of his own
stories. Whatever he does, be it really great or small, the part he has had to
play is given undue prominence in the telling. Because inside himself he feels
inadequate he ever thus presents to others a false front, in the effort to
impress them with his own superiority. But psychologists say this attitude also
is in reality the expression of an inferiority complex.

A third type of person we all know—in fact, we cannot
completely avoid him—actually believes himself of quite superior stuff to other
individuals. He is ever eager to appear before the public, but when he does, as
the current sporting expression goes, he always plays to the grandstand rather
than offer support to his associates in their team work. He strives for the
plaudits of the multitude rather than seeking satisfaction in more obscure but
worthy service. The psychologists say such an individual is afflicted with a
superiority complex.

Other traits of character there are also, perhaps a hundred
of them, that derive from these main stems; branching out as ugly heads to mar
the symmetry of action. Yet it were an unprofitable thing to draw attention to
these defects, which in greater or less degree we find so common, were it not
that in olden times they apparently were so well understood, and that the only
remedy so far discovered is set forth most clearly in the story of the
constellated Hydra.

Although, according to the mythology of the Greeks, Hydra
originally had a hundred heads, only one of them was immortal. It may be
assumed, therefore, that the head yet to be seen on the constellated figure is
this deathless one.

Likewise, it has been found by modern psychologists, through
wide experience with hypnosis, psychoanalysis and innumerable specially devised
tests, that there is one head, or governing attribute within the unconscious
mind of man which ever dominates the soul; which never is relinquished, and
which never takes a second place so long as life shall last.

More commonly it is referred to as the desire for
significance. It is the inner urge to be and to accomplish.

Within each form of life there is a vital urge, an impulse
that causes it to cling to life, to struggle onward, to climb upward, to
express itself and to maintain its own identity at whatever may be the cost. In
human terms we speak of the group of thoughts thus expressing as the Power
Urges. They are mapped by the Sun in a chart of birth.

Because this urge for significance is chiefly that which
impels the individual to struggle to survive, and without which he relinquishes
his hold on life, it is that factor within the human mind which resists most
strongly the effort to remove it, or to cause it to take a subordinate place.
When it is quoted that self preservation is nature�s first law, it is implied,
as psychologists have found to be the case, that the individual holds most
tenaciously to the importance of himself.

In his contact with the outside world, however, this sense
of his own power and importance often suffers considerable shock. Especially in
the childhood home is he surrounded by those whose abilities are greater. These
through their attitude may cause the child to feel quite inadequate to meet
that which is expected of it. Regardless of its abilities, for the child�s
experiences are not wide enough to afford a basis of sound comparison, its
repeated failure to live up to its own expectations, which are those implied by
the attitude of others, may give rise to a chronic feeling of inferiority.

On the other hand, the child who is constantly told how
bright he is, whose parents place him in the limelight on every possible
occasion, and in spite of mediocre performance give him unstinted praise,
develops an undue feeling of his own importance. Too limited in experience to
judge by outside standards, as his home and parents constantly offer the
suggestion that he is made of better stuff, he accepts their statement as the
truth and nourishes a chronic feeling of superiority.

Because in childhood the mind is more plastic and
impressionable than at any later date, the suggestions offered by parents and
others in the home are of far more importance, as a rule, in the development of
chronic states of feeling as regards its own significance, than the experiences
of a later date.

Yet whether the objective mind and certain thought cells of
the unconscious mind accept the suggestion of superiority or that of
inferiority, there is always a central nucleus of the unconscious mind—those
thought cells most closely allied to the individuality—that never do accept the
suggestion of their own inferiority.

In spite of any evidence to the contrary they hold
tenaciously to the attitude that the individual is significant in the scheme of
things, that he possesses qualities of value, that in reality he is not an
inferior being. They hold to this tenaciously, because when this inner attitude
is displaced, when this Power Urge nucleus of the individuality accepts defeat,
when the soul itself admits its lack of worth, no longer is there any hold on
life, nothing left which makes an effort to survive.

When, therefore, there has been developed through any
experiences, of which the usual source is the home, a chronic feeling of
inferiority, the individuality thought cells of the unconscious mind refuse to
accept this and devise various subtle ways by which to save their face.

The apologetic person, in the Power-Urge section of himself,
expects greater things of himself than of others. He feels that he should be
more perfect than the common run of mankind; hence he apologizes because of his
performance, though quite as good, or better than the performance of others. He
shrinks in fear from responsibility because if he did not make a great success
of it, this would be a shock to his interior sense of superiority.

The boastful individual, because of his desire for
significance, which in actual life he fails to attain, compensates by trying to
impress others with his superiority. He presents himself as he would like to
be. But while this may fool the central cells of his unconscious mind, it
seldom fools the public.

The person with a superiority complex, after he leaves the
parental roof and faces the world, still feels superior; but, because he fails
to mold circumstances as he believes he should, his unconscious mind must ever
find new alibis, for this lack of success. His failure to accomplish more than
others, to save the face of his central unconscious mind, is ever laid to hard
luck. He never gets an even break with others. He thinks himself imposed upon,
and that his merits are never properly rewarded.

These types are only three of the more easily recognized
misadjustments, of the hundred that might be mentioned by which the unconscious
mind compensates by subterfuge for failure to make a correct appraisal of its
own relation to life.

To readjust these mental factors was one of the twelve great
labors of Hercules. The huge sea serpent, Hydra, pictures the Revelation
decanate of Cancer, where the Sun is located from July 2 to July 12. This
creature of the middle decanate of the home sign, according to Greek legend,
not only had a hundred heads, but even as when a complex or a repression of the
human mind is violently slain it crops out in other types of expression, when
one of the sea serpent�s heads was cut off, two other heads immediately grew to
take its place.

Hercules solved the problem of these abnormal growths by
securing the aid of a companion, such a companion as befits a home. When he
clubbed off one of the unseemly heads, Iolaus seared it over with a hot iron to
prevent another from growing.

The final head, however, was immortal, as is the desire for
individual survival and significance. Wisely, therefore, instead of attempting
its annihilation, Hercules buried it under a rock, symbolic of the "rock of
ages," the Pole Star, Truth.

Whatever may be the unseemly desires within the unconscious
mind, they cannot successfully be repressed. Merely to deny them expression is
to have them show two different heads where there was one before. But their
energy can be utilized, and made to perform constructive work by applying the
hot iron of discrimination, sublimating it through wise appraisal which directs
it to find full expression in more highly acceptable ways.

Quite correctly the Individuality of man refuses to consider
itself inadequate, inferior and of no consequence. The soul of each was brought
into existence with a definite and essential work to do. Quite correctly also
desires for expression refuse to subside. Whatever their nature they represent
energies which diverted can be turned to constructive use.

Any attempt to annihilate a desire, to merely ignore it, or
to suppress it, fails, because the energy is still within the finer body and
must express either in acceptable or unacceptable ways. The text therefore is:
Not Through Slaying Desire, but Through Sublimating It to a Higher Plane of
Manifestation Does Man Make Soul Progress.

The Ship Which Brought Them Safely Home

If we turn back the leaves in the book of earth�s past,
before long we reach pages in which fact and tradition are so inseparably
blended that one cannot be discerned apart from the other. To perceive where
one ends and the other begins thus often becomes a hopeless task. This seems
particularly true in reference to the various accounts of the flood.

One who has stood on high mountains in various regions of
the land and observed close to their summits—or further down where erosion has
failed to remove them as it has on top, scouring them off down to the granite
core—various rocks of sedimentary origin, realizes that there is some
foundation for the story of the great inundation. There are but a few choice
spots in all the world that show no evidence of having been at some time in the
past at the bottom of sea or lake or ocean. Sandstone, limestone, shale, and
all their innumerable derivatives are formed only in the presence of water.

Gradual subsidence of certain areas accompanied by gradual
elevation of others may account for much of this; but there is evidence also of
occasional cataclysmic change. Yet when we contemplate these, especially of
modern geologic time, the accurate history of the rocks grows dim and human
tradition emerges as of more significance.

Traditions of a widespread flood are almost universal.
Linked with the story of creation as written on the oldest cuneiform tablets
known is an account of it. American Indians have their version of the story;
and the Tro-Cortesianus, one of the three Maya books which alone escaped
Spanish vandalism, being smuggled into Europe, links it with the sinking of an
ancient land from which we inherit stellar wisdom. A translation of this Maya document
reads:

"In the year 6 Kan, on the 11 Muluc, in the month of Sac,
there occurred terrific earthquakes which continued until the 13 Chuen without
interruption. The country of the hills of earth—the land of Mu (some translate
this Atlantis)—was sacrificed. Twice upheaved, it disappeared during the night,
having constantly been shaken by the fires of the underneath. Being confined,
these caused the land to rise and sink several times in various places. At last
the surface of the earth gave way and the ten countries were torn asunder and
scattered. They sank with their 64,000,000 inhabitants 8,060 years before the
writing of this book."

Quite similar in their purport are the accounts contained in
the Timaeus and Critas of Plato, where the civilization of Atlantis is mentioned
and the story is told of its sinking, as related to the Greek law giver, Solon,
by an Egyptian priest. After describing it in much detail, and asserting that
the world had been many times scourged both by fire and by water, the priest
told Solon of the sinking of the western land in a single night some 9,000
years before.

These times of greatest cataclysm, according to the stellar
traditions of the past, take place when the equinoctial pointer, which is the
index to evolutionary progress, reaches the stations of most critical change in
its backward circle of the stars. These points are the dividing line between
the fixed fire of Leo and the movable water of Cancer, and the opposite
position of the zodiac where the fixed air of Aquarius joins the movable earth
of Capricorn.

These two points reached annually in the journey of the Sun
mark the extremes of temperature. The hottest weather of the year commonly
occurs about July 23, when the Sun moves from Cancer into Leo; and the coldest
weather of the year usually may be expected about January 20, when the orb of
day leaves Capricorn to enter the sign of the Man.

The Vernal Equinox in its movement through the signs,
however, goes in the reverse direction, so that it moves from Leo into Cancer,
from fire into water, from the decanate of the red-hot crater into the decanate
pictured by a ship.

When the Equinox thus crosses from fixed fire into movable
water, and the Sun at the time of the Vernal Equinox goes down in the west as
if submerged, the Waterman rises in the east, triumphant, and starts pouring
water from his urn down upon the earth in torrential floods. And as timing this
event, the Pleiades, which are often called the doves, are then directly
overhead.

According to the latest and most refined astronomical
calculations, the complete precessional cycle requires 25,868 years, instead of
the round number, 25,920 years, which the ancients more commonly employed. If,
therefore, as both tradition and the pictures in the stars hold forth, the
period when stresses and strains are such as to make watery cataclysms probable
relates to the passing of the Vernal Equinox from the decanate of Crater in Leo
into the decanate of the Ship in Cancer, the dates are not difficult to
ascertain.

Taking 1881 as the date of the Equinox passing from Pisces
back into Aquarius—that is, 30 degrees back from the place where in ancient
times it had been ascertained that the commencement of the circle of stars
coincided with the commencement of the circle of signs—it must have passed back
into Cancer from Leo just five signs earlier, and will again reach such a point
seven signs later.

Five-twelfths of 25,868 gives 10,778 years before 1881, or
8,897 BC as the date of the last such period of watery cataclysms. And
seven-twelfths of 25,868 gives 15,085 years after 1881, or 16,971 AD as the
next such period. On these dates, at least, at the commencement of the
astronomical year, as Crater goes down in the ocean and the Pleiades are
overhead, the Waterman comes up with his urn as if to pour torrents down upon
the earth.

The traditions and stories of this olden flood, wherever
they are found, are linked with the wickedness of men. This wickedness is not
of the usual kind, but always has to do with strange and abnormal psychic
phenomena. Atlantis sunk, so the tradition goes, because of its devotion to
magic of the blackest sort. Those who had gained the ability to use occult
forces no longer used them for the welfare of the people, but chiefly to gain
in power for themselves. The populace was enslaved by unseen forces.

In the time of Noah also, a similar condition obtained. The
sixth chapter of Genesis relates incredible things about the diabolical
influence upon the lives of the people of beings that rightfully belonged to a
different plane.

Those who go to the s�ance room expecting to surrender
control of themselves to entities about which they have no knowledge should
again read this ancient story. The ship, or ark, picturing the Research
decanate of Cancer, where the Sun may be found from July 13 to July 23,
indicates that the etheric sea of such a situation favors the production of
strange creations; but it also indicates that it is safer not to become
immersed in this Psychic Research sea.

Warned by their knowledge of the stars, the wiser ones of
Atlantis are said to have departed to foreign shores. Likewise warned was Noah,
and as the account makes clear, neither he nor his family took part in the
current psychic abominations.

Instead, they ever kept alert, always avoided those who
followed practices that included loss of self control. Their souls were stable
and sound, like the Grecian ship which carried Jason and his companions on the
famed Argonautic Expedition for the recovery of the Golden Fleece.

This Golden Fleece of eternal life, symbolized by the ruler
of gold, the Sun, in its exaltation, the sign of the Ram, is well worth sailing
for, well worth all the Research that may be devoted to learning how it may be
secured. But it is not to be obtained by loss of self control, and not by a complete
discard of caution.

There is a right way to investigate the conditions and
possibilities of the unseen realms, those regions where man must make his
future home. But when the ark first touched the land Noah did not throw caution
to the wind and rush forth. First a raven and then a dove were sent out that
the conditions which there prevailed might be learned without danger. Nor did
Noah remove the cover of the ark until, without chance of being drowned, he had
ascertained that the earth was dry.

Not birds, but radio waves, are now used as messengers. The
nervous system of man is an organic receiving set, over which he can receive
communications from other planes. With properly developed poise he can tune in
and out much as he desires, and without the danger of some other entity in
control.

If, as when the raven was sent from the ark, no message is
received, or if it be inimical, if he retains poise he can tune off the
station. But if, instead, he steps from his steady bark and permits dark waves
of unknown origin to sweep him off his feet, so that, no longer is he able to
determine what he can do, he has relinquished his ship of safety.

The right and the wrong way to accomplish a given thing may
seem closely allied. Particularly may this seem true in the field of Research
so long as that which is desired seems identical. Yet the result to the
individual of using the correct method of approach is the difference
experienced by those who entered the ark, or departed on board ship from the
land of Atlantis, and those who felt the full force of the deluge.

Argo encourages rather than disparages the effort at
research into the forces and regarding the entities of the invisible plane; a
tendency outstanding among those born while the Sun is in the section of its
annual cycle thus pictured. But it also offers wise council as to the method by
which such voyages can be attempted in safety. Each mariner should keep his
hand firmly on the helm. The text, consequently, is: Poise is the One Safe
Haven of the Soul, therefore, "Under All Circumstances Keep an Even Mind."